Will primary results impact Hawkins deal?

Despite the results of their respective races in this month’s primary, Whitman County commissioners Pat O’Neill and Greg Partch see no impact from the results on the Hawkins shopping mall proposal.

“I made the vote January 3. And right now, that’s all there is,” said O’Neill.

Much of the focus on the campaign centered around the county’s agreement to fund $15 million worth of infrastructure for the shopping center site which totals 714,000-square feet.

Partch, who lost his bid for a fourth term by finishing third in the primary race, declined to comment on how the election might influence his course of action over the next four months.

“I’m just going to work until my last day in office,” he said.

O’Neill, who was topped by Republican challenger Dean Kinzer by 19 points in the primary, said he did not take the election results as a referendum on the decision made early this year by him and Partch to up the county’s Hawkins commitment from $9.1 million to $15 million. The $9.1 million deal between the county and Hawkins was signed in 2008 when O’Neill’s seat was held by Republican Jerry Finch.

“Let’s put it this way, nobody voted,” said O’Neill. “Only 38 percent of the county voted in the primary.”

O’Neill ousted Finch in the 2008 election. The original $9.1 million deal was a factor in that campaign.

“I told Jeff DeVoe (Hawkins project manager) the other day that if this thing goes through it may have cost three commissioners their jobs,” Finch commented Tuesday.

Finch, though, believes Hawkins was just one of a number of policy decisions that turned some voters against him. He said in a phone interview that the decision to increase the deal to $15 million would probably not have angered people, or prompted the citizen Organization to Void Illegal Conduct to file a lawsuit, had O’Neill and Partch allowed public testimony before their Jan. 3 vote.

“That’s where they went wrong right there. Had they let people speak, that group never would have got that fired up and never would have filed that lawsuit,” said Finch.

Art Swannack, winner of the district one primary, agrees.

“I think a lot of it is people being upset they weren’t listened to,” he said.

As for what happens to the deal now?

“Right now, nobody knows anything, nobody’s saying anything,” said Bill Tensfeld, number two qualifier in district one primary.

The county is negotiating an amendment to the Jan. 3 commitment to alleviate the legal concerns brought up in the OVIC suit. Prosecutor Denis Tracy said he received Hawkins’ proposed amendment Monday afternoon.

“There’s a lot of items up in the air right now,” said Tensfeld. “If they start falling into place, it might be a good thing. If they don’t, it might be even better.”

Partch previously said he would like to have the amendment include a clause that protects the county if it does not find a source for the $15 million.

“It’s all tied up in litigation,” said O’Neill. “We can’t assume what’s going to happen. We can’t assume what we don’t know.”

Jack McLaughlin with DA Davidson told the county in December his firm would not issue bonds under the agreement signed by commissioners.

Since then, the county has sought a low-interest loan from the state’s Public Works Trust Fund.

County Administrator Gary Petrovich said Tuesday the county has had to reduce its request to the state from $13 million to $11 million.

The Public Works Trust Fund, he said, asked applying entities to reduce their funding requests after receiving applications for more than $1 billion worth of funding from its $600 million available stash.

The county is also asking for $2 million to renovate the landfill.

Commissioner Michael Largent, who voted against the deal in January, noted even if funding is approved by the trust fund’s board of directors, it would still have to get the okay from legislators next year.

Since local legislators have spoken against the commitment of public funds for the shopping center, he said, that task may prove difficult.

“It’s got to go through some awfully big hurdles,” Largent commented.